Some managers have a signature substitution. During his time at Manchester City, Roberto Mancini had a habit of making his side more potent by bringing on a defensive midfielder. Across Manchester, Alex Ferguson could simply unleash first Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and then, in his final years, Javier Hernandez when his side required a late goal.
And, whether winning, losing or drawing, Louis van Gaal likes to change a full-back. It is something he has done mid-match in nine of Manchester United's past 10 games.
There is something sadly symbolic about this, an obsession with functional footballers in a team that plays functional football.
Van Gaal has used 13 players in the full-back positions already this season. Jesse Lingard, not among their number but one who has been tried as a wing-back is now installed as the No 10, supposedly the most creative spot in the side.
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Ashley Young, who had been reinvented as a full-back, spent the second half at Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday as a centre-forward. In Pep Guardiola’s great Barcelona team, everyone seemed a midfielder by trade. Perhaps at Van Gaal’s United, everyone is a full-back. It feels a particularly warped interpretation of Total Football.
Especially because too few have proved especially accomplished on the sides of the United defence. Luke Shaw was a welcome exception. He was in superlative form until his double leg break in September.
The exuberant teenager Timothy Fosu-Mensah excelled at White Hart Lane until his enforced removal, where for once, Van Gaal had little choice in the matter.
Enter Matteo Darmian. Briefly, when Shaw was starring on the opposite flank, the Italian seemed an astute acquisition, a bargain at £12.7 million (Dh65.9m). Since then, he has become a symptom of the malaise at United. His Old Trafford career plumbed new depths at Tottenham when, in the course of 346 seconds, he contrived to collect a caution while being at fault, to varying degrees, for three goals.
Darmian conceded the free kick for Spurs’ second. He could not cut out the cross for the first and third. It was a sadly hapless performance, one where everything that could go wrong did. It highlighted a difference with the dynamic player who excelled against England in the 2014 World Cup and who United appeared to have bought. Darmian, in short, is not a bad footballer.
But he is an addition to the litany of those who have regressed under Van Gaal, looking constrained and confused by his demands and stripped of confidence by his management.
Indeed, like Angel di Maria, he is one who has got worse the longer he has been exposed to the Dutchman and his methods.
Van Gaal was right to prefer Fosu-Mensah in the starting XI on Sunday, yet, while he could trumpet that as proof he will in trust in emerging talent, it is an indictment of the manager nonetheless.
Darmian appeared one of Europe’s more accomplished right-backs when he arrived. Now, even before his harrowing cameo at White Hart Lane, an untried teenager felt the safer choice.
Around the same time, Nathaniel Clyne was buzzing around with great energy in Liverpool's 4-1 win over Stoke City. The Englishman was a target for United last summer until they abandoned their interest in him to concentrate on Darmian, allowing Liverpool a free run at him.
Clyne has scarcely been a sensation at Anfield, but he is attuned to the pace and intensity of the British game, whereas Darmian is not; this season has provided the Italian with an unfortunate culture shock.
The Englishman is also benefiting from a manager, in Jurgen Klopp, who imbues players with belief. Van Gaal appears to have the opposite effect. Perhaps, if roles were reversed, Clyne would be struggling at Old Trafford and Darmian flourishing at Anfield.
Instead, the Italian appears in the category of Van Gaal’s underwhelming additions, along with Marcos Rojo, Morgan Schneiderlin and Bastian Schweinsteiger.
Di Maria, Memphis Depay and Radamel Falcao belong still lower on a list dominated by disappointments.
When Darmian began brightly in August, it looked very different. But while Van Gaal has his full-back fixation, the underachieving, the over-promoted and the out of position merely serve to illustrate the strange thinking pervading at Old Trafford.
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